Gold has two dominant inputs and a set of secondary ones. The dominant inputs are the real yield — the opportunity cost of holding an asset that pays nothing — and the US dollar, the currency it is priced in. Most gold moves worth explaining can be traced to one or both.
gold pressure ≈ −(real yield change) − (dollar change) + (official demand) + (flows)
Not a precise model, but the right structure. Rising real yields and a rising dollar are both headwinds; falling real yields and a falling dollar are both tailwinds. Central bank demand and ETF flows adjust from there.
VILIQ encodes exactly this in the gold node of the flow graph: gold ETF flows at 40% weight, real 10Y yield at 35%, and the dollar index at 25%. The weights are published so they can be argued with, and the node is rescaled by the inputs actually observed rather than treating a missing series as zero.
Gold rises 2.5% over a week. The 10Y real yield fell 18 basis points and the dollar index fell 0.9%. Both legs are supportive, which is a coherent explanation. If instead the dollar had risen 1.5% over the same week, the explanation would be incomplete and you would look at flows and official demand before concluding anything.